Heartless glassy little fellow! Fenoglio threw a cork at him, but Rosenquartz was used to such missiles and dodged it. Why had he taken on such a pessimistic glass man? Rosenquartz had his left arm in a sling. After Sootbird’s performance, Fenoglio had persuaded him to go and spy on Orpheus one more time, and Orpheus’s horrible glass man really had pushed the poor creature out of the window. Luckily, Rosenquartz had landed in the gutter, but Fenoglio still didn’t know if the child-catching scene had been Orpheus’s idea. No! He couldn’t possibly have written it!
Orpheus could write nothing without the book, and it seemed — for Rosenquartz had discovered this much — that Dustfinger had actually stolen it from him. Anyway, the scene was much too good for that Calf’s-Head to have written, wasn’t it?
He’ll outwit them all.
Fenoglio went to the window, while the glass man adjusted his sling with a reproachful sigh. Did Mortimer really have a plan? Damn it, how was he to know?
Mortimer wasn’t really one of his characters, even if he was playing the part of one.
Which is extremely annoying, Fenoglio thought. Because if he had been one of them, presumably I’d know what’s really going on behind those thrice-damned walls.
He stared darkly over the rooftops to the castle. Poor Meggie. And no doubt she’d blame him for everything again. Her mother certainly did. Fenoglio remembered Resa’s pleading look only too well. You must write us back again. You owe us that!
Yes, perhaps he really should have tried. Suppose they killed Mortimer? Wouldn’t it be better for them all to go back to their world then? What would he want to do here once the Bluejay was dead? Watch the immortal Adder and the Piper tell his story?
"Of course he’s here! Didn’t you hear what she said? Up the stairs. Do you see any other stairs around here? For heaven’s sake, Darius!"
Rosenquartz forgot his broken arm and looked at the door.
What woman’s voice was that?
There was a knock, but before Fenoglio could call, "Come in," the door opened and a rather powerful female form entered his room so impetuously that he instinctively took a step back, knocking his head against the sloping roof. The dress she wore looked as if it had come straight from some cheap theatrical production.
"There we are! This is him, the author!" she announced, looking him up and down with such contempt that Fenoglio was aware of every hole in his tunic. I’ve seen this woman before, he thought,
"And what’s going on here, may I ask?" She jabbed her finger into his chest as hard as if to stab him straight to his old heart.
And he’d seen the thin fellow behind her as well. Of course .
Wait. .
"Why is the Adderhead’s flag hoisted in Ombra? Who is that frightful fellow with the silver nose? Why were they threatening Mortimer with spears, and since when, for goodness’ sake, has he gone about wearing a sword?"
The bookworm. Of course! That’s who she was. Elinor Loredan. Meggie had told him about her often enough. Fenoglio had last seen her through bars, stuck in one of the dog pens in the arena where Capricorn’s festivities were held. And the timid man with the owlish look was Capricorn’s stammering reader! Though, with the best will in the world, Fenoglio couldn’t remember his name. What were these two doing here? Were tourist visas for his story being handed out these days?
"I admit I was relieved to see Mortimer alive," his uninvited guest went on. (Did she ever stop to get her breath back?) "And thank goodness he seems to be sound and healthy, although I didn’t like to see him riding into that castle alone at all. But where are Resa and Meggie? And what about Mortola, Basta, and that puffed-up mooncalf Orpheus?"
Good lord, the woman was just as awful as he’d imagined her! Her companion —